Sparano: Special teams players got better Mon.

Did you read the headline? Did you throw up?

Relax. Work with me, here, please.

Coach Tony Sparano just spoke to the media today and noted that in a game where the Miami special teams imploded -- allowing a 103-yard kickoff return, a field goal block returned for a touchdown, and a blocked punt that led to a touchdown -- there were parts of the special teams play that showed improvement from previous weeks and actually looked good.

Here's exactly how he stated the case:

"The hard thing, and I'm going to answer this question as honest as I can to answer it," Sparano said. "Tell me the return that came out there other than the big one? Tell me where we didn't ... "

His voice trailed off, before he picked up with a new thought ...

"So when I'm watching this film here the other night, am I pissed off? Sure," he said. "Obviously I'm pissed off. We can't cost ourselves points. We just can't do that. And we did.

"But when you break it down and take the three plays out of that tape, and you can't, they're part of the game, they change the game, no question about it. But when you do it and you take those plays out and start to watch the rest of the game, there were some really positive things done in that game.

"Guys like Nolan Carroll got better in that game. Reshad Jones got better in that game. Nobody said one word to me about Austin Spitler who played 14, 15 plays on special teams for the first time and played pretty darn good in that game. Well, you're going to say, 'Coach, how can they all play good?' There were three plays in the game, all in different phases and at different times in the game. That's not an excuse, but I just think they're fixable. And I trust the people in that room to fix them."

Obviously, Sparano trusts the new people in the room to fix the problem because he fired special teams coordinator John Bonamego on Tuesday. But all this suggests Sparano expects the players that are in the room, or at least some of them, are getting better.